


Being Human

by indigo_carter



Series: Supernatural Hurt/Comfort [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bullying, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND DEPRESSION, Sister!fic, description of relapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_carter/pseuds/indigo_carter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine: Imagine returning from a hunt and finding your older brother (Dean) has got a new, and not very nice girlfriend.</p><p>Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel/reader</p><p>Author: Frankie (seducing-winchesters)</p><p>Reader Gender: female</p><p>Word Count: 3,500</p><p>Warnings: DEFINITE TRIGGER WARNING FOR DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, SELF-HARM AND NEGATIVE BODY IMAGE. Sister!fic. Fluff.</p><p>A/N: I have had depression and anxiety since I was 14. Every now and again I relapse, although I’ve been in recovery since I was 20. This is based on that. If you aren’t reading on a ‘puter, replace Y/N with your name, Y/N/N with your nickname, and G/F with any old (girl’s) name you don’t mind hating for a while!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Human

You’d been stuck on hunt after hunt for a month – a solid month away from home – and turning the key in the lock felt fantastic. Swinging the heavy door open, you stepped into the hall and nearly collided with a blonde bombshell prowling on the other side.

“Shit, sorry! Hi…umm, who’re you?” You dropped one bag and held your hand out to shake hers.

“Who am I? More like who are you?”

“I’m Y/N. I kinda live here.”

“Ohh, you’re the little sister Dean-bear won’t stop talking about.”

“Dean-bear?” You stifled a splutter of laughter and struggled to control your face. “That would be me, yes. Who’re you again?”

“G/F. Move, I need to go out.”

“Can you wait til I’ve got my bags in? They’re sort of blocking the path.” You shrugged apologetically and squeezed past her.

“No, I can’t.” G/F stuck her nose in the air and stormed past you, actually slamming the door behind her. You stood stock still, a frown crinkling your brow as you tried to work out how exactly it was that you’d managed to make someone hate you within two minutes of meeting you. At the sound of the slamming door, your brothers appeared from their respective rooms and came charging up to meet you.

“YN/N!”

“When did you get home?”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming home?”

Their cacophony of questions pushed aside the concerning behaviour of Dean’s most recent floozy, and you quickly dropped the two bags you were carrying to hug your brothers.

“I literally just walked in the door – met G/F, by the way – and I did leave a message on your phone, Sam, I promise. I called last night but you must have been asleep.” Sam ran a hand through you hair and Dean dropped a kiss onto your forehead.

“God we’ve missed you!”

“Really? G/F seemed to think her ‘Dean-bear’ talks about me too much, so maybe that’s true.” You managed to hide the irrational pain which stabbed through your chest as you said it, and winked at Sam.

“Yeah, she’s a bit much sometimes. Don’t worry, she’ll come around eventually!” Dean gathered you into a hug again and you grinned, hugging back.

“I need to get my bags in, can you help?” You pulled your best puppy-dog eyes at your brothers and they both rolled their eyes before reaching for the door.

Once you were safely installed back in your own room with your familiar belongings, you truly began to relax. Until the front door slammed again, that was. You leapt from your bed like you were scalded and meandered your way to the library. G/F was tapping her way down the hall in high heels and you raised an eyebrow. You could see why Dean had gone for her, but she’d be nicer if she had a personality transplant. Mentally admonishing yourself, you padded after her in socked feet, wondering where she was going. As you rounded the corner before the library, you encountered her. She’d clearly been waiting for you, because she was standing facing the direction you were coming and had her hands on her hips.

“You following me around my own home now??” She was furious, you could tell, and you stepped back a pace, hands up in placation.

“I was going to the library, it’s not my fault you were going there too.” You did your best to sound reasonable, reluctant to fall out with Dean’s new girlfriend before you’d sussed her out fully.

“Yeah, well in future if you think I might be somewhere, do me a fucking favour and don’t fucking go there.” She was hissing – full on hissing – at you and if it had been any other situation, you would have laughed. “I’ve heard all about you and your ‘illness,’” she waved her fingers around like quotation marks, “I’ve heard all about how pathetic you are, how you tried to kill yourself, how you self-harm. It’s all just for attention isn’t it? Just because you want to be more important to your brothers than anything else? Well, you’ve failed. Again.” She stuck out her bust and eyed you victoriously. Your eyes widened. Your brothers had never been anything but supportive of you in your battle with depression and anxiety, nothing but caring and loving in getting you through your self-harm and suicide attempts. You doubted they’d said anything negative…but still niggles developed in the back of your mind.

“Look,” you began, calmly, “I don’t know what they’ve told you-”

“No, you don’t, because you haven’t been here – oh hey babe!” Her tone switched from vicious to sickly-sweet and you pulled a face. Dean rounded the corner behind you and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Hi…babe.” You could hear the sarcasm in his voice and bit your lip. “What’re you two doing, having a nice chat?” If you hadn’t known better, you would have assumed Dean had heard what she had been saying. As it was, you thought he was probably just getting bored of her.

“Oh, yes, lovely, just getting to know your darling sister!” G/F practically crooned at him, wiggling forwards like some kind of ridiculous caterpillar and waving her manicured nails in your face. “Isn’t she just the sweetest?!” She almost yelled it in your ear and you leaned away from her, disgust written across your face.

“Yeah, she’s the best sister in the world, the only woman in the world for me.” Dean smirked and wrapped his arms around you. “I’ve missed her while she’s been gone – this place hasn’t been the same.” As much as you loved your brother, sometimes you thought he had the subtlety of a brick shit-house.

“Dean…” you warned, suspecting a full-on temper tantrum from the teetering G/F.

“Oh Dean-bear that’s so cute!” She squealed. You hoped you were only imagining the undertone of poison in her voice.

Removing Dean’s vice-like grip from you, you headed to the kitchen. Sam was leaning against the table, eyes scanning over a document in one hand, slurping noisily from a mug in the other. You desperately wanted to vent, but fear of being told you were overreacting stopped you. Greeting him, you wandered to the fridge in search of something to drink. Pulling a diet lemonade from the door, you wilted as you heard the tell-tale tap-tap of heels on the floor. Sammy looked up, startled, and made a break for it, giving you a brief, “See you in a bit, YN/N,” as he dashed for the door. You frowned at the fridge and closed it slowly.

“Fatty.” You recoiled in shock. It was one thing to call yourself names, but something else entirely to hear it from someone else. “You’ll never amount to anything when you’re as big as you are.” You didn’t need to turn around to know G/F had taken Sam’s spot. Looking down at yourself you wondered what you’d done to deserve this. “Seriously, if you could control yourself, I’m sure your brothers would love you more than they do. They’re the reason you were away so long – they kept finding hunts so they could have this place to themselves for a bit longer.” You tried to steel yourself to the venom in her voice, but she seemed to know exactly what your worst fears were and preyed on them. Turning to face her, you waved your drink in front of her.

“It’s diet, actually.” You rolled your eyes and headed for your room, avoiding contact with anyone and throwing the bolt the moment you got the door closed. Leaning on the door, you slid down it until you were sitting on the floor, head tilted back and eyes squeezed tight shut.

 _It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true._ You repeated your mantra in your head. _It’s not true, they love you, they want you here, it’s not true. She’s just jealous._ You tried to calm your breathing as you headed for a panic attack. _BUT WHAT IF SHE’S RIGHT_. Your hands were balled, your nails digging viciously into your palms, throat tight and eyes pricking. _What if she’s right and they don’t want me here and they think I’m just attention seeking and they don’t love me and they think I’m worthless. They wouldn’t send me on hunts if they thought I was worthless, but they would if they didn’t want me to come back._ Dread and pain and guilt and fear balled in your stomach until you were retching dryly over your bin. Following the retching came the tears, and you curled in a corner of your room, a blanket dragged from your bed and wrapped haphazardly around you, fist shoved against your mouth to muffle the gut-wrenching sobs which tore through you and tears flooded down your cheeks.

Eventually panic gave way to numbness, and numbness to sleep, and when you woke up a few hours later you felt sticky, achy, and a bit silly. You must have overreacted. There was no way she was actually on a mission to break you. Shedding your blanket, you headed into your en-suite bathroom, and turned on the water. Scrubbed clean and wearing your comfiest jogging bottoms, a loose hoody and fluffy socks, you threw the bolt on the door and stepped into the hall. You could hear laughter from the kitchen and padded down to see what was going on. Sam, Dean and G/F were sat around the table, Sam’s best lasagne and salad on the table, G/F’s hand on Dean’s and no place laid for you. Your stomach turned to lead and plummeted to the floor. You turned and walked quickly away, praying none of them would notice your retreating back. Returning to your room, you closed the door and wrapped yourself in the duvet, silent tears pouring down your cheeks once more.

The following morning, you decided not to get up. At least, you pretended it was a decision. It was more of a submission to the numbness and pain crashing over you in waves. There was no way you could move today. You spent the day drifting in and out of a doze, occasionally thinking you could hear muffled conversation outside your door. No one knocked, so you didn’t bother to call out. Evening came and you could hear laughter again. Pain piled on pain and you burrowed into the covers, ignoring the plaintive rumbling of your stomach.

The next few days followed the same pattern, to the point that you couldn’t remember the last time you ate or washed, and you’d given up hope of doing anything except ceasing to exist. It wasn’t like anyone wanted you anyway. A knock on the door echoed through your room, and you cleared your scratchy throat to tell them to go away. Before you could, the door was shoved open and G/F stood, framed in the doorway.

“Oh, you are still alive then. More’s the pity. Dean-bear and Sammy sent me to find out if you’re ok. Not that they really give a damn, it’s more for appearances sake, really.” She tossed her long hair and looked at you with disgust written all over her face. “I’ll tell them you’re the same as usual – lazy, attention seeking, and dirty. Like, do you ever wash?” You lay in dumb silence, letting her venom wash over you, feeling it prick your skin and seep into your pores. “No wonder they hardly noticed when you were gone – it’s not like you’re the life and soul of the party, is it? Jeez, I can’t imagine letting myself get like you. It’s not surprising you hate yourself, really. If I was like you, I’d hate me, too.” She spun on her heel and closed the door behind her. Silence thick as molasses lay in your room. You wondered what would happen if you did choose to just lay here and die, wondered how they’d react, but the only image your mind could provide was the three of them laughing at dinner without you.

Another day passed – another day of peaceful, almost blissful solitude. When you were alone you could pretend you were dead and then it didn’t matter that you were too much of a wuss to actually do it. You’d been bad before; your depression had ripped and torn at you, left you scarred and battered and in hospital, but it had never been like this. Horrendous lethargy which sapped your strength and your will to do anything except breathe, which made it a challenge to go to the bathroom or to swallow a mouthful of water. You were being dragged into a black hole, and it didn’t seem like there was anyone there to help you swim against the never-ending tide of nothingness.

As you dozed, there came a fluttering of wings. At first you thought it was the product of your confused mind, but when a warm hand was laid on your forehead, you couldn’t ignore it. Slowly opening your eyes, you looked up blearily at Castiel where he stood over you. His face was crumpled with shared pain, and you thought you could feel his grace sifting through your thoughts and memories.

“You are wrong, Y/N.” It was the first almost-nice thing anyone had said in ages. “They love you very much, and they missed you terribly when you were gone. They’re worried about you. So worried they summoned me. I could feel what you’re feeling the moment I arrived. I wish you’d called for me.” He removed his hand from your head and knelt beside you, elbows on the edge of the bed, the sleeves of his trench coat rucked up, chin resting on his hands. “Why didn’t you call for me?” You blinked slowly at him, tears forming again.

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You daft girl, it wouldn’t bother me. Surely you know that?”

“Do you know how it feels, Cas, to doubt everything you thought you knew?” He took a deep breath, met your eyes steadily before replying.

“Yes.” Your stomach dropped. “I felt it when I saved Dean. I felt it again when I met you. I felt it most when I somehow spearheaded a rebellion in Heaven. But I have never felt the way you feel. I felt wretched and confused but I have never wanted to stop existing. I can only imagine and share your emotions and try to understand.” He fell silent, his eyes still locked on yours. It was like he’d crept under the blanket of silence and pain which had slowly fallen over you since you’d returned home, and you stretched out a hand from your bundle of blankets, seeking his. Tangling your fingers together, you let your eyes slide closed again.

“I don’t think anyone can understand. Not because no one else has it bad. Not because no one else feels like this. Just because no one else will ever experience it exactly the way I do.”

“I can.” You squeezed his hand and sighed. Silence reigned for a while, Cas’ thumb rubbing your knuckles, the other hand stroking your shoulder over the blankets. “Do you want me to speak to your brothers?”

“About what?”

“About what triggered this?”

“I was due a relapse, Cas. I’d been fine for too long, I was on borrowed time.” You had always been resigned to the definite inevitability of relapses, but so long as you vaguely acknowledged their likelihood, you were normally able to escape the worst of them.

“But it wouldn’t have been this bad if there hadn’t been a certain someone getting between you and your brothers. You know she’s stopped them coming to see you? They know something’s wrong, but they think she’s been bringing you food and giving you company. They’re very confused.”

“If you think it would help, Cas.”

“Can I share some of your memories with them?” His tone was gentle and even, and you winced away from the thought of them seeing your thoughts. “Just the ones of G/F. Just the pertinent ones.”

“Ok,” it was whispered, almost swallowed by the blankets, but it was said. He smiled warmly at you and pressed a kiss to your temple. You cringed internally when you realised you hadn’t washed yourself or cleaned your hair in god-only-knew how long.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise.” Another flutter of wings, and Cas was gone. His visit had invigorated you somewhat, and you shoved back the blankets, recoiling at the smell of unwashed skin. Shoving the blankets in the laundry basket, you wobbled to the shower and scrubbed yourself clean. Approximately halfway through your shower, your legs gave out and you finished up sitting on the floor. Emerging into your room clean and fragrant, you grabbed new blankets from the closet and curled up on the bed again, the beginnings of contentment easing into your stomach. Someone was going to help you. It was amazing how that small piece of information eased the pain inside your head. Someone had listened to you, and believed you, and was going to help you.

What felt like hours later, there came a loud knock at the door, and then two enormous bodies launched themselves at you.

“YN/N! What were you thinking?” Sam’s voice broke and you had to blink hard to stop yourself from bursting into tears. “You know we love you, you ‘nana! Nothing could stop us!” He hauled you and your blankets into his arms and squeezed you tight to him, sitting down on the bed and wiggling until he was resting against the wall with you on his lap. Dean crawled to kneel in front of you, looking directly into your face.

“You’re my baby sister, how could you think anyone would come before you. You know that you and Sammy are the most important things in my life, YN/N, nothing could ever replace you.” His tone was fiercely protective, and you smiled sheepishly at him as he cradled your head in his hands. “You’re a silly. Clearly we should never let you out of our sight again.” He rested his forehead against yours before tugging you into his arms. “She’s gone, you know. Cas showed us…” he broke off, swallowing hard, “well you know what he showed us, and I told her she could very kindly take everything of hers and get the fuck out of our home. I made sure Cas followed her so she only took what was hers,” he added with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m sorry.” It came out smaller and quieter than you’d anticipated, but your brothers just squeezed you tighter.

“You don’t need to be sorry, little sis.” Dean rumbled into your shoulder.

“We should have paid more attention and not let queen bitch lead us astray.” Sam mumbled into your ear.

Eventually, the three of you broke apart, and Dean began bustling about, directing Sam to take your laundry to the washing machine and asking what you’d like to eat. When they’d both left on errands to make you more comfortable, you looked at Cas. He’d been standing in the corner of your room observing everything.

“You were right.” You smiled gently at Cas and patted the bed. “Come here?” He walked slowly over and sat down next to you, the pair of you resting your backs against the headboard of the bed. “Thank you for coming to me, Cas.”

“I couldn’t have done anything else.” His voice was pitched low, and his hand sought yours. “I’ve come to realise many things about humans and being human, Y/N, but mostly what I’ve learned is about courage, and beauty, and intelligence. It’s about being gentle, but being strong. It’s about understanding and putting a name to feelings I never thought I’d have.” He cleared his throat, and you realised you’d forgotten to breathe since he’d started talking. “it’s about realising what love is, and how it feels when the person you love is at risk, and knowing you haven’t been able to tell them.” A violent blush had begun somewhere around your chest and was rising up your throat to stain your cheeks. He gripped your hand tight and turned to face you, his other hand coming up to cup your cheek and gently turn your head. You slowly met his eyes and nearly melted at the overwhelming amount of love shining in his eyes. “I’ve come to understand, Y/N, that I am in love with you.” You swallowed hard. “Do you think you could come to love me too?”

“Oh, Cas…” you gasped. “Cas, you’ve been in my head. How don’t you know that I love you?”


End file.
